I wanted to do something fun with Lewis today, so I asked him if he wanted to cook. He said yes (of course), so we worked on this recipe that was GREAT for him because he could do almost the whole thing himself.

What we did:

First we washed our hands because it’s never too late to start teaching real elements of cooking. Lewis is old enough to learn about washing your hands before cooking!

Then, I got out various dry ingredients appropriate for a trail mix, such as pretzels, cereal, raisins and craisins, sunflower seeds and candied sunflower seeds (like M&Ms, but sunflower seeds!). Lewis put his hand in each bag to measure out whatever amounts he wanted of each item (his hands are small, and so was the bowl, so it didn’t get out of hand like pouring would have!). When we were happy with the formula, I had Lewis mix it up with his hands. While he worked on that, I microwaved a small bowl of white chocolate chips (about 1/2 cup, probably), watching it carefully because they scorch easily. Then I poured the melted white chocolate over the mixture, mixed it up, and let him “mix it up” with the spoon when everything was evenly coated.

We just left it in the bowl (I’ll put it in a ziploc bag to store it), but you could make it into clumps if you want. Maybe that would be a good twist if your kid was older – they could put the clumps out on the wax paper.

Okay, it’s basically candy, but it was a great recipe for us because Lewis could get so involved in making it!